Hamas Finds Itself Aligned With Israel Over Extremist Groups

Palestinians paid their final respects to the Salafist leader Hisham al-Saidini, who was killed in Gaza by one of two Israeli missile strikes this month.Credit
Mahmud Hams/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

GAZA — Hamas, the Islamic group that governs Gaza and was once considered one of the most extreme Palestinian movements itself, is working to suppress the more radical Islamic militant groups that have emerged here, according to militants, putting Hamas in the unusual position of sharing an interest with Israel.

The jihadist extremists, known as Salafists and inspired by the ideology of Al Qaeda, are challenging Hamas’s informal and fragile cease-fire with Israel.

Salafist militants say Hamas has been making arrests in recent days and confiscating weapons from one of the groups, Jaish al-Umma, or Army of the Nation. While some Salafists seek to further their uncompromising form of Islam by peaceful means, others here have turned in recent years to violence.

Both Hamas and Israel view the Salafist militant groups with increasing concern. Israeli officials point to the continued flow of arms into Gaza and to links forged between the groups in Gaza and those across the southern border, in the rough and mountainous desert terrain of the Sinai Peninsula.

“Hamas is tightening the grip on our necks and storms our houses,” a Salafist said in an interview this week at his house in a refugee camp in central Gaza. Speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid the attention of the Hamas authorities, he added, “We are chased down by Israel, Hamas and Egypt.”

The activist used to belong to another radical group called Jund Ansar Allah, or Soldiers of the Supporters of God, which was crushed by Hamas in 2009. Now, he spends most of his time researching Islamic law and consulting with other Salafists who come to his home, which has a library of about 100 books on Islamic subjects.

A Salafist leader who also spoke anonymously for fear of reprisal by Hamas said in an interview, “The jihadists as groups are over now.” He said Hamas had been going after the groups one by one.

Hamas government officials refused to comment on measures against the Salafist militants. But Yahiya Moussa, a Hamas member of the Palestinian Parliament, said that while the Salafist groups had the right to carry out resistance against Israel, it must be “within the unified and national program,” meaning in line with Hamas policy.

A senior Israeli defense official, Yossi Kuperwasser, said that in Gaza, Israel was facing a “hostile governing element challenged by an even more hostile element” and that “radical Islamic groups are competing with each other over who is more radical.” In a briefing with reporters in Jerusalem this week, Mr. Kuperwasser, the director of Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs, also said the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group, another significant force positioned somewhere between Hamas and the Salafists, was becoming stronger and better armed. Twice this month, Israel has launched deadly missile strikes against militants in Gaza whom it identified as operatives in the global jihad movement, saying they were involved in firing rockets and planning other attacks against Israel.

One of the strikes killed Hisham al-Saidini, a senior militant who led the Al Tawhid and Jihad group. The Israeli military said Mr. Saidini had been planning a complex attack against Israel along the Sinai border by Gaza-based militants in collaboration with Salafist operatives in Sinai.

Hamas has been tightening security along Gaza’s border with Egypt in an effort to prevent logistical cooperation between the groups on both sides, carrying out more identity checks of people in the area, according to Palestinians who work in the smuggling tunnels that run beneath the border.

Photo

Guarding the smuggling tunnels along the border with Egypt in Rafah. Hamas has worked to prevent logistical cooperation between militant groups.Credit
Hatem Moussa/Associated Press

While some point to the success of Hamas in containing the Salafist groups, others note that the effort is complicated by the fact that most of the jihadists emerged from the ranks of Hamas. They left after the group decided to participate in Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006 and beat its secular rival, the Fatah movement.

Salafists said Hamas’s decision to participate in the elections derailed it from its Islamic course. A year later, after bouts of bloody factional fighting, Hamas seized full control of Gaza, routing the Fatah forces there.

Salafists have been active in Gaza for decades, engaged in charitable activities and Islamic education, and dependent on donations from supporters abroad, mainly in Persian Gulf states.

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But after the elections in 2006, militant jihadists began attacks against Israel and also against Internet cafes, restaurants and women’s hair salons in Gaza, places they saw as being at odds with their deeply conservative interpretation of Islam.

A turning point came in August 2009, when the radical group Jund Ansar Allah declared an Islamic emirate in the southern part of Gaza. About 100 of the group’s men holed up in a mosque in the southern city of Rafah and engaged in a standoff with Hamas security officers that ended in a shootout. In all, 28 Palestinians were killed in the fighting, most of them Salafists, including the group’s leader, Abdel Latif Moussa.

Nathan Thrall, a Middle East analyst at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, noted that since the crackdown in 2009, the number of attacks against cafes and entertainment sites in Gaza had decreased dramatically.

“Hamas has been overwhelmingly successful in containing Gaza’s Salafi-jihadi groups,” Mr. Thrall wrote by e-mail.

Adnan Abu Amer, a political analyst in Gaza, said the Salafists, especially those engaged in violence, had only a “modest structure” in Gaza that lacks popular support, making it easier for Hamas to curb them.

Israeli officials also point to a degree of ambivalence in Hamas’s dealings with the jihadist groups.

“Till now, Hamas has not reached a strategic decision to put an end to this phenomenon,” said Mr. Kuperwasser, the defense official. He noted that Hamas had released Mr. Saidini, the militant recently killed in an Israeli strike, from prison in August.

Mr. Kuperwasser said Hamas’s reluctance to decisively confront the jihadist groups may stem from a fear of their strength, as well as the possibility that some Hamas security members would balk at taking tough action against former colleagues.

“They do take some steps on the ground,” Mr. Kuperwasser said of Hamas, “but never full-heartedly.”

Fares Akram reported from Gaza, and Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem.

A version of this article appears in print on October 20, 2012, on Page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Hamas Finds Itself Aligned With Israel Over Extremist Groups. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe